Page 59 of A Long Way Back
“How can I help you?”
“Are you the pharmacist?”
She nodded.
“Is there somewhere we could talk?”
She looked him up and down, obviously judging whether he was a threat. “Come to a consulting room.”
Ink followed her to a room with a frosted glass door which she didn’t fully close.
“Take a seat.”
Ink perched on the edge of the chair. “I have a friend who was badly injured in a fall fourteen months ago and I think he’s become addicted to painkillers. To codeine. I found a bag of pills and brought two to show you.”
He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the piece of paper he’d wrapped the pills in and unfolded it. The pharmacist picked one up, turned it over then sniffed it.
“Is it codeine?” Ink hadn’t considered it might not be.
“Codeine’s odourless. These don’t smell. It also has a bitter taste, but I’m not testing that out. It looks like codeine. I assume from you sayinga bag of pillsthat it’s not legally obtained.”
“Probably not.”
She suddenly looked wary. “I can’t dispense codeine without a prescription.”
Ink winced. “I’ve not come here to get drugs. I want to help him stop using them and I don’t know how to do that.”
The woman swallowed hard, but looked less tense. “Do you know how much he’s taking?”
Ink shook his head.
“You think you could persuade him to get professional help? One of our other branches has an addiction clinic above the pharmacy.”
“I doubt it. I don’t think he’s ready to admit he’s addicted. He doesn’t know I found his stash.”
“It’s very easy to get addicted to codeine.”
Ink gripped the sides of the seat. “I wondered if there were any tablets that looked the same as these, that were safe, and I could swap them over. Vitamins maybe?”
“That’s not something I could condone and you don’t want him overdosing on vitamins.”
“Could he just stop taking the codeine?”
“To come off it safely, he needs to be weaned off. Depending on the amount he’s taking, he might even need daily doses of methadone.”
Methadone?That was what heroin addicts took. Ink was becoming more and more horrified. “So no going cold turkey?”
She sighed. “It can be done. The symptoms of codeine withdrawal peak in the first week, then fade over a month. But there are possible psychological consequences of sudden withdrawal which include thoughts of suicide, particularly in that first week.”
Shit!“What happens in withdrawal? How will he react?”
“He’ll probably have headaches, be unable to sleep and be irritable. His muscles will ache, he might have a fever, he could vomit. Stomach ache, diarrhoea, cravings, depression, dehydration… It feels like having a bad dose of the flu.”
Ink pressed his lips together.
“If he’s not too deep into it, he could try going cold turkey if you’re with him. You’d need to give him vitamins and protein shakes, and keep a supply of Imodium handy. The first few days are the worst. By the end of a week, if not before, he should be okay but he’ll still need help. He’ll crave the drug, well…crave the effects. You need to get him to want to stop taking it. Really want it. Placebos aren’t going to work. He might think his dealer has given him some bad batch and…”
“Oh sh…” Ink mumbled. “I hadn’t thought of that. Okay. I get it.”
